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Travel the globe without ever stamping your passport at this year's Scottsdale International Film Festival.

"I call it armchair traveling," festival director Amy Ettinger says. "You're still here in the Valley but you're looking out at the world through the eyes of a different group of people before you head back to C-Span, headline news or sports. We're bringing the world to you."

It's fitting, then, that this year's theme is "a bird's eye view" — a nod to incomparable thriller master Alfred Hitchcock, whose godlike vantage points built an omniscient perspective. That's the sort of temporal ascendancy Ettinger aims to bring with this year's 54 films from such countries as Kenya, Japan and Italy, in addition to domestic features.

The biggest coup this year was scoring Netflix's Alfonso Cuaron-helmed "Roma" ahead of its streaming premiere for the festival's opening night at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, Nov. 2. Ettinger just managed to squeak the tent-pole into the brochures just before their print deadline. She described the win as a "sheer miracle" she never expected to occur.

Cuaron, the Academy Award-winning writer-director of "Gravity," is courting more Oscar buzz this year with the Mexico City-set drama focused on a middle-class family and their housekeeper.

Will astronaut Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) make it back to Earth? That's the big question in 2013's thrilling "Gravity."(Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures)

"I'm phenomenally excited to have such an important film open this year," she said. "It's the sort of film that will soon enter the pantheon of extraordinary ones ... We've had some momentous opening night films in 18 seasons I never thought we'd be able to top, but I think this is our ultimate opener."

More movies, more screenings

There are plenty of other talked about films showing at the Harkins Shea-set festival, including the conversion-therapy drama "Boy Erased," a glimpse at the life of famous and controversial photographer in "Mapplethorpe" and a documentary on famed glitterati nightclub "Studio 54."

These films offer immersive escapes as part of the 18-year-old festival's largest season. The focus on providing a diverse group of flicks that would otherwise go unseen at Valley movie houses has always remained the same.

"It's more films and more screenings than we've ever had," Ettinger says. "This year I feel relieved knowing that our core, loyal and steadfast devotees will want to see everything. Opening this up to two weekends makes it possible to do that."

Growth and flexibility remain two of the major goals each year, she added. Coming up with a theater schedule full of slow entries, peaks and valleys creates a rhythm for moviegoers to have no need to leave the dark cinema.

Don't be deterred by captions

Quite frankly, if you can share an animated GIF with a pithy one-liner from a "Real Housewife" in a text message, you can watch a foreign film with subtitles. There's no need to gasp at the sight of those helpful lines of text that thread together one's understanding of a film.

Samantha Mugatsia and Sheila Munyiva in "Rafiki," directed by Wanuri Kahiu.(Photo: Film Movement)

"Some of our best films in the program happen to have subtitles," Ettinger said. "People sometimes have a misplaced fear about watching a movie with captions but they're comfortable having a film running and reading something from their phone."

Still intimidated by the prospect of being the odd one out standing squarely in a throng of enthusiastic cinephiles? Ettinger advised casual moviegoers to just turn out for one movie. It's a gateway drug, for lack of a better term.

"Just walk up to the box office and see a film. Any film," she enthused. "If you're interested but you're still not sure just come see what it's about. If we can get you into that theater you're not going to want to go anywhere."